Cattle generally spend four to twelve months in a feedlot to reach a mature weight. They are typically kept in pens of 50-300 animals with 150-300 square feet per animal. Each pen has a watering area and a feeding area. A sick animal's interaction history with these areas can be indicative of morbidity.
Detecting morbid animals in commercial feedyards is difficult. The modus operandi is for a “pen rider” to ride amongst the animals and visually evaluate each animal and remove morbid animals from the pen so that they can be treated with appropriate medications. A pen rider will typically be responsible for riding 5000 animals. Given the pay scale of pen riders, the astute concentration required, battling environmental elements, and that animals often hide their symptoms in the presence of man, detecting sick animals is very challenging.
Morbid animals have poorer performance (average daily gain and feed conversion) than their healthy counterparts. Not treating morbid animals in a timely fashion can exacerbate the morbidity and contribute to death. Finding and treating sick animals as early as possible allows the medicaments to be more effective. The current value of an average head of cattle in a feedyard is about $1600, thus minimizing sickness and death loss is paramount to a commercial feedyard's financial success. What is needed is a simple, dependable, and cost-effective method to identify sick animals so that they may be removed from the pen and treated appropriately in as timely a manner as possible.